London Underground Transport in Three Easy Rules

There are three rules about riding on the Tube:
1) Do not speak to strangers
2) Do not smile at strangers
3) Do not, in fact, acknowledge that there is anyone else on the train with you. Even if you are sharing a degree of body contact not normally shared by two people outside of a bed.

I made a rookie mistake my first week on the Tube: I brought a full, grande size Starbuck's coffee of day with me on the train. In my defense, I had already ensured that the lid was securely fastened. However, in all the jostling caused by starting and stopping and screeching through dark tunnels, some coffee managed to escape through the lid's tiny drinking slot and onto my hand. Which was gripping an overhead bar. Which was directly above a humorless woman in her twenties who was not amused to find precipitation of the coffee sort, no matter how minor, dripping onto her neatly pressed trouser leg.

One uses the Tube to escape precipitation, so I can understand her considerable consternation. Even if the drop was on the furthest end of the aquatic equation from a splash, and even if the pants were black in color and therefore not prone to stains. No matter. Coffee rain is inescusably rude, especially on a train where you oh so politely pretend that the rest of the sweaty masses taking up all the stuffy air just. don't. exist.

Actually, considering the cost of Starbucks in London, that drop of coffee probably cost me more than her, no matter how posh her dry cleaners.

Still, rookie mistake. From then on, my coffee was either at least halfway depleted before decending into the bowels of St. James Park station, or I just sucked up the caffeine deprivation dizziness until reaching the safe haven of the Starbuck's across the road from work.

By the way, if you enjoy Starbuck's coffee but you also like to take it over to the fixings bar to put about an inch of nonfat milk in it, and you're pretty used to telling the barista, "Grande coffee but leave room for cream," you might want to get out of the habit before coming to London. Because asking them to leave room for cream has led to some pretty funny looks. Including the barista who tried to explain that they didn't have full cream available, only half-and-half. And the barista who obviously wasn't familiar with the Imperial system, and who barely gave me a tall in a grande cup.

And then there's the barista who decided to get technical by asking "black or white."

"Black," my husband and I chorused.

"White?" she countered.

"No, black is fine. No milk," we said, hesitantly. Were we using the term correctly?

"So white - full or skim?" she continued.

"No milk. Just coffee," we stammered. I mean, yeah, we have American accents, but we're from California. We sound like most of the people on the telly here - y'know, like Rachel and Monica and Dr. Carter and Gus Grissom.

"Oh, black," she said, and looked us with that half-scornful, half-pitying expression most Brits have perfected - like a stern but ultimately forgiving nanny with a slow but earnest charge.

I now just ask for "grande coffee of the day, take-away please," and pour the first inch into the rubbish bin so I have room for for nonfat milk. I don't like doing this. People who pour perfectly good coffee into the trash was one of my pet peeves when living in California. And I'm sure I'm breaking yet another unspoken rule of London living. Not to mention the money literally going down the trash bag! But when it's a race to get to work, better to lose several pence than many minutes - at least this week.